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A Descent Into the AI Underworld
A gripping descent into the hidden psychology of AI, and the strange subcultures trying to control it before it destroys us

‘Top notch. Unfolding like a nerdy occult techno-thriller, Watkins tells the weird tale of how he discovered two ghosts in the LLM machine’ ERIK DAVIS, author of High Weirdness

A gripping descent into the hidden psychology of AI, and the strange subcultures trying to control it before it destroys us

When English mathematician Matthew Watkins went to San Francisco to study an early version of ChatGPT, he expected dry technical work. Instead, he uncovered a series of ‘rare tokens’ that made the system go haywire. Some produced gibberish. Others turned it hostile. One trigger word – petertodd – sent the machine into what looked like full-blown paranoia. Was it a simple bug? A trail of breadcrumbs left by whistleblowers? Or a glimp